The Book of Earth
by esking
Summary: It was an accident. A stupid accident, and Gabriel left the palace alone, and got up to his usual tricks. He decided to create a new human, give it to a random mortal on the street. Except the mortal's child was called Jesus, and he was not random at all. Earth's history was never supposed to go this way. Angst because everything spn is angst.
1. Chapter 1

**Do not try to reconcile this with the Bible or Supernatural timelines. It will only confuse. Almost completely AU**

**No sacrilege intended; I am Christian. This is just a story.**

_**Whoever yields properly to Fate, is deemed**_

_**Wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven.**_

_**EURIPIDES, Fragment**_

_**Yeah, well. They never called me Gabriel the Wise…**_

Lucifer hurried down the hall, pushing open every door he passed and peeking inside to no avail.

"Gabe!" he called. "_Gabriel!_". At the end of the hall he nearly mowed over Balthazar and Castiel, appearing eight and five respectively, both of whom were crouched sneakily behind the wall, wearing dark sunglasses too big for their faces that slipped down their noses.

"Have you seen Gabe?" Lucifer asked them, too preoccupied to laugh.

"Shh!" hissed Balthazar, "You'll blow our cover!" He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "We're spying."

"Ah." Lucifer nodded sincerely. "Well, I'll be quiet then. But in your spying, have you seen Gabriel?"

"He said he was going out," Castiel piped up.

"_Shh!_" Balthazar clapped a hand over his mouth. "_Be quiet!_"

"Sorry," Cas muttered.

"Well, if you do see him, let me know." Lucifer continued down the next hall until he came to the grand staircase leading down to the huge front door.

"Gabriel!" he shouted once more before setting off down the steps and out the door, onto the cloud upon which the Lord's castle was built. Cherubim and minor angels flitted about around the palace grounds, minding their own business. They were relaxed and cheerful. Good. That meant that his father, Michael and Raphael were still far away. If they came back and realized Lucifer had let Gabriel run off…he shivered.

"**GABRIEL!**" he roared, this time speaking not with his voice, but in a multidimensional wavelength of celestial sound. Angel echolocation.

A sharp pain shot through his head as the report bounced back to him: thousands of minor angels, just barely distinguishable amongst them Balthazar and Castiel. _Gabe…where are you? Come on, Gabriel…Father will kill me…Gabey…Come out, come out wherever you are… _There!

The little punk was on Earth, somewhere near the Caribbean Sea. He was under strict orders from God not to ever descend to Earth unsupervised by Lucifer, Michael or Raphael. _Damn it._

Lucifer closed his eyes and found himself standing on a flat, dusty road. The sky was a cool, dusky purple, but the atmosphere was hot and arid. Not a soul was in sight.

Lucifer decided to walk instead of fly. Now that he was down here, he realized he'd forgotten how soothing the moral world was. Still, he hurried, looking left and right, seeking Gabe out with his mind. _Gabriel, where are you…?_

_"Do not fear, Mary…" _The voice, choked with silent laughter, was still far distant. Lucifer rolled his shoulders and unfurled his wings, not bothering to hide them, and took off toward the voice.

Just outside a small village of modest straw-and-stone huts, Gabriel stood in his true, glowing form, wings spread wide, speaking to a terrified looking young woman, only a girl, really. She couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen years old.

"And you will conceive a child, and call him…" Gabriel paused, wearing the face he always did when he was trying to think of a clever come back to one of Michael's snide remarks, "_Jesus._"

"Gabriel!" Lucifer shouting, striding angrily toward him.

Gabe looked over his shoulder, and Lucifer saw his eyes widen as they caught sight of his furious older brother. "And he shall be the Messiah and all shall worship him," he added hastily, and took flight back up into the sky.

Lucifer gave chase, paying no mind to the frightened mortal girl gaping at him, and caught up to Gabe just as the pearly turrets of the Heavenly palace rose into view.

He grabbed his brother by the arm and cried, "Gabriel, are you out of your mind!"

Gabriel furrowed his eyebrows and glared up at him. "It was only a joke."

"_Only a joke! _I don't care what you did to the mortal! Do you realize how much trouble I'll-how much trouble _we'll_ be in if Father finds out you went to Earth _alone_?"

"He won't," Gabriel insisted, his voice rising a little in pitch. "It's one little human, it'll barely make a difference."

"Except that once little human will have children, and his children will have children," Lucifer shot back, "and millions of people will exist who should never have been born!"

"So call Fate," said Gabriel. "She's got a massive crush on you, I'm sure she'd help if you asked."

Lucifer fell silent. The kid had a good point, even if he was still to angry too admit it at the moment. If he asked, Fate could descend to Earth as soon as this Jesus had a child, and kill it. Then only one life would be added to the world, and only one would have to die. For being such an idiot, Gabriel was really rather smart.

But Lucifer didn't voice any of this aloud. Instead he merely snapped, "You're just lucky I don't tell Fa-" he broke off as he and Gabriel came to a sudden jarring halt midflight.

God, their father, stood before them, flanked by Michael and Raphael, both wearing identical, nauseatingly smug smirks.

Lucifer swallowed, bowed his head respectfully. "Father." Gabriel followed suit.

"Gabriel," said God in his low, rumbling voice like the crashing of distant thunder. "Go inside." Gabriel vanished. "Raphael, Michael, you as well."

Michael opened his mouth to argue. Lucifer could tell he'd been anticipating watching his punishment.

Before Michael could make a sound, however, God said, "Now," and he and Raphael vanished.

For a long while, God stood there, surveying Lucifer with an inscrutable expression. At last, he said, "This is not something I can allow to pass unpunished, Lucifer."

"Father, please forgive me. I was with Castiel and Balthazar and I lost track of Gabriel, and by the time I found him he had already-"

God held up a hand and Lucifer fell immediately silent.

God sighed. "It doesn't matter how the events came to pass. All that matters is that they did, and that we now must deal with the _irreversible damage_ which you have caused."

"There doesn't have to be any damage!" Lucifer said eagerly, silently thanking Gabriel for his flash of genius. "We can talk to Fate. When the human has his first offspring, she can-"

"It is not the child's descendents that are the problem," said God. "It is his followers. Gabriel has created the man who will begin a new religion. A religion that believes in _us._"

Lucifer's mouth fell open, as for the first time he full grasped the magnitude of what Gabriel had done. He knew that as angels, their purpose was to serve as sentries over the Earth, gently guide its inhabitants the way the Book of the Earth commanded. They were never supposed to be known to their charges. They were supposed to live in anonymity. The mortals were never intended to know about the divine powers which watched over them.

"Father, I-"

"Come with me." The next moment he and Lucifer were standing before his grand marble desk in his high-ceilinged office. The walls were carves with scenes from the world's history. Or future, rather, for most had not yet come to pass. As a child, Lucifer had spent hours in the office, gazing up at the carvings, imagining the day when he would watch them take place

Now, though, each fine carving seemed rougher, less defined, as though they were aging and crumbling.

His father's voice drew Lucifer's attention to the single item on the marble desktop: a thick, massive book bound in a blue cover which shimmered when the light changed, rippling with waves of blue and green, just the way the Earth looked from Heaven. Along the spine in fine silver thread was the word: _Terra_.

Lucifer knew the book well. All angels were required to read the future of the planet, and to know their own part they played in its future.

God flipped the book open. In response to Lucifer's questioning look, he said, "Read it."

Lucifer had memorized this page in particular. It was called 'The Joining', and detailed the time when he descended to the mortals as Heaven's first ambassador. It was a great honor, and due to his efforts, Earth and Heaven became one, and humans and angels lived in harmony for millennia.

Lucifer glanced over the page, and felt his blood run cold. There was no Heaven on earth. He did not descend to an adoring mass. The page now wrote of a devastating battle between him and Michael, and of a great man called Sam Winchester who cast them both into a place with an unfamiliar name which nevertheless sent shiver's down Lucifer's spine: Hell.

"Father, I don't understand. Michael-"

"Michael is sent to kill you, to stop you from ending the world." God's voice was emotionless and cold. "This is not the only page that has been changed." He turned back to an earlier one. "Holy wars, Crusades, Apartheid, Holocaust. Billions of people who were supposed to live long, fruitful lives now die young, victims of mindless violence. The human to whom you were supposed to appear on the day of the Joining will never be born because his mother, a brave woman called Anne Frank, who would have become Germany's first queen, now dies when she is only fifteen. The planet's entire future has been changed because of that woman's son. Because of you."

"But Gabriel-"

"Gabriel is a child," said God, a little louder. "_You _were responsible for him. It is _you _who must be punished."

Lucifer raised his eyes to his father's, fear prevalent on his face.

God heaved a great sigh. "I love you. I love all my children, all the mortals down on Earth. But they are flawed. They kill wrongly, take justice into their own hands. The followers which will unite behind Jesus will kill. They will kill millions in my name. When they die, I cannot allow them into Heaven.

"But I cannot leave them to fend for themselves in Purgatory either. They are still my children. Therefore the ones who have wronged in life will pass unto you. You will earn forgiveness by shepherding the evil into the place of Punishment."

"What place of punishment, Father?"

God dropped his eyes to the marble floor. "I prayed I would never have to use it. When I built the Earth, I created it as a precaution, in case any of my children rebelled against me. it is called Hell. you will rule it and watch over the condemned if you ever wish to be accepted back into my Kingdom."

Lucifer bowed his head. "As you command, Father."

**oOo**

As he left God's office, Lucifer passed Balthazar and Castiel, both now wearing fishbowls over their heads and walking in slow, laborious hops.

When they spotted Lucifer, they pulled off their fishbowls and scuttled toward him, clustering around his legs.

"Luci, is Father mad atchoo?" Castiel asked.

"Of course he is," snapped Balthazar. "Why else does he call us into his office?"

Lucifer sighed and hugged his brothers to him. "Don't worry about it guys. Everything will be fine," He assure them. Inwardly, his mind returned to the glimpse of the book, the one he'd caught just before God closed it. The image filled his mind, yet he refused to believe it was true. It couldn't be. He would never…

After a moment, Lucifer extracted himself from Castiel's and Balthazar's hugs.

"Where are you going?" Castiel asked as he walked down the hall toward the main door.

Lucifer turned back and gave him a small, sad smile. "I have to leave for a little while, but I'll be home soon. Don't worry."

Castiel nodded, looking reassured. He beamed a gap-toothed smile. "When you come back we can play as'ra-nots!"

"I can't wait. Bye-ya, kiddos." As he said it, Lucifer locked eyes with Balthazar and received a shock. He'd always been little Balthy, his baby brother. But he was grown up now, somehow, and looking at Lucifer with a sad, knowing look that told Lucifer his brother knew exactly what was going, on that he was leaving for good, and most likely would never see them again. Silently, Lucifer pleaded, _Look after Cassy_.

Balthazar nodded gravely, making Lucifer feel as though a knife were being wrenched around inside his stomach.

In the grand entrance hall, he passed Gabriel, and felt his heart lodge in his throat as the image of his father's book rose unbidden in his mind.

Gabriel dropped his eyes to his feet. Lucifer could tell he was about to say something, but he cut him off.

"I don't blame you," he said, resting a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. He was quite a bit taller than his younger brother, and with his head bowed, Lucifer spoke only to the blonde hair on the back of it. "You're my brother, and I'll always love you."

Gabriel nodded at the floor. Lucifer's insides seemed to have been replaced with writhing snakes. He couldn't get the book's page out of his mind. But looking down at his brother now, he couldn't even imagine being angry with him, not that angry. He could never imagine harming. How could he ever _kill _him? He couldn't, Lucifer told himself. He simply couldn't. The book must be wrong. But the book was never wrong. Everything written within would one day come to pass. And for the first time in his life, Lucifer feared something besides his father. _But it must be a mistake._

At the door, a snide voice said, "Took Father long enough."

Lucifer stopped dead. Michael was leaning against a marble pillar, arms folded, a smirk twisting his thin lips.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lucifer turned to face his older brother.

Michael straightened up away from the pillar and walked toward Lucifer. "I mean it took him long enough to banish you like the outcast you are."

Lucifer seized Michael by the collar and slammed him against the pillar so hard that the marble cracked. He had had it. He had had enough of Michael's constant taunting, constant blatant self-centered, holier-than-thou crap. They were all _holy._ Michael was barely older than him at all, and yet it was he who got to boss Lucifer around, he who got to fly around with their father smiting the evil, he who was allowed to travel the Earth uninhibited or chaperoned, all with that ever-present taunting smirk so horrible, Lucifer wanted to rip it off his face.

But Michael only smiled. "I have to say, I won't miss you. We'll be better off with you gone. You've been disloyal and selfish since the beginning."

"Who served in the First Legion, on the front lines?" Lucifer snarled. "Who practically _raised _Balthazar and Cas? I have given more to this family than you and Raphael combined."

"You only serve yourself," Michael spat back. "If you hadn't been so careless and self-centered, Gabriel would never have gotten out, and none of this would have happened!"

Lucifer opened his mouth to retort, but then closed it without saying a word. He knew Michael. It was his fault Gabriel had left at all. He released his brother and stepped back. In an instant, all the indignance and anger leaked out of him, and he suddenly felt extremely tired.

"I don't want to kill you, Michael," he said wearily, letting his shoulders sag.

"Is that a threat, little brother?" growled Michael.

"No," said Lucifer. "It's the truth."

Without another word, he spread his wings and took flight from the palace.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent ...**_

_**'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.**_

_**JOHN WEBSTER, The White Devil**_

The archangel Lucifer may have been many things, one thing he wasn't was easily deterred. He refused to believe the future the book laid out. He was a shepherd of the world. If he couldn't alter its future, who could?

Angelic technicalities were the bane of the Heavenly Host's existence. Because of Gabriel's influence, the mortal's son Jesus was part angel. He could heal with his touch, see on the Angelic Plane, the one on which demons and enchantments are seen for what they truly are, and he could bear to see and hear and angel's true form.

Naturally, Lucifer's first plan had been to kill the child before he garnered any followers to his religion. He found out very soon after his first attempt that he was incapable of killing Jesus. More angel fine print. This problem would take a more creative approach.

Jesus was hard to kill, but he wasn't immortal and he wasn't invincible.

Lucifer came to him when he was a young man and tried to persuade him to kill himself. He tried to make him jump from the top of a high building, goading him in a way which would have worked on any other man, but Jesus refused easily, seeming immune to his persuasion. He told Lucifer how he'd been told the Devil would try to tempt him, and he would not give in. He said the Lord had told him this, but Lucifer knew only one who would call him 'Devil': Michael.

Was his brother really trying to actively prevent his reentry into Heaven? Was he going to allow all those millions to die, as foretold in the Book? But then, Lucifer reminded himself, Michael had not read the pages God showed him. He wouldn't know of the turmoil the new religion would bring. He probably thought he was only protecting Jesus in the event that Lucifer sought him out to exact revenge.

There was only one way to get through to this mortal. "Listen," said Lucifer, dropping his sly, manipulating tone and speaking as straightforward and earnestly as he could, "your life is a mistake. My brother was playing a trick on your mother, and it…got out of hand. You're not the Messiah, you're not the son of God."

"Then why can I heal the sick?" Jesus asked. "Why can I see things no one else can?"

"Because you're part angel. You can do those things because we can."

"You're the _Devil_," said Jesus, but even speaking the word, there was no venom or hatred in his tone, only matter-of-fact devoutness. "You're not an angel."

"I am. I am the archangel Lucifer. Your birth was caused by _my _mistake, and for that I am truly sorry. But you cannot live."

"_What?_"

"I have seen this planet's future. Before you were born, it was peaceful. The Earth became a great and prosperous kingdom. But now that future is gone. Your existence starts a whole new religion, and several more branch from it. Wars will happen that were never intended to, _billions_ will die before their time. Because of you. But if you die now, none of that will happen. History can take its natural course."

He took a step closer to the young man. "I know you're frightened, but you have a good heart. Please. Will you sacrifice yourself for the human race?"

Jesus looked into Lucifer's eyes for what felt like an eternity. "The Lord told me you were clever," he said at last. "I never imagined you would be so cruel. Begone, Devil. Take your tricks back to Hell."

_This is you, Michael,_ Lucifer thought as he flew back to his underground prison in defeat. _You now share mine and Gabriel's guilt._


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: in ch. 1, I accidentally wrote that Gabriel was on Earth near the Caribbean sea. I meant Mediterranean Sea. Sorry! I do know geography. Thanks, Chasing**

**They say before betrayal comes a perfect moment in the past**

**-anonymous**

He began his new work with an incredibly strong sense of purpose. He cared painstakingly for the souls under his supervision. He tried to teach them, show them the wrongness of their ways. he explained to them the truth about Heaven and God. Some of the souls even listened. They worked to fix their souls. They redeemed themselves. And when they did, Lucifer sent them to Heaven with a distinct sense of pride and contentedness.

Each small success, in Lucifer's mind, made up for the thousands, the millions who rejected his teachings. The ones who clung to their evil ways were punished accordingly.  
He had a student once, fourteen centuries after his expulsion from Heaven. The man quickly admitted his mistakes in life, and eagerly drank in everything Lucifer taught him.

The man, Fergus McCleod, worked tirelessly in his efforts to redeem himself. He took it upon himself to teach others, and amassed himself his own flock of faithful students trying to redeem themselves.

Everything seemed perfect. So many souls had turned, Lucifer thought for sure this would be enough to earn his father's forgiveness.

One night, or what passed for night in Hell, Lucifer called Fergus to him and greeted him as an old friend.

"Fergus," he said, offering the Scotsman a drink - an indulgence his father had never permitted in Heaven. "I want to thank you for all the work you've been doing. You've really…helped people. Helped me. So thank you."

Fergus raised his glass in a toast, and his lips twisted in a small smile. "Well, I'm glad you feel that way. You know, I've been meaning to thank you as well. For giving me the opportunity to influence so many souls. I can be very…persuasive when I want to. And those souls, oh…" Fergus closed his eyes in bliss, "they were so _eager_, so willing to change. And I changed them."

Just then, two souls appeared on either side of Fergus. Lucifer tensed, staring. Their eyes. They were completely black. Looking back at Fergus, he saw that he, too, had black eyes.

"These are _my _students, Lucifer. They're very quick studies."

"Fergus, what have you done?" said Lucifer in horror.

"This is the future, Luci," said Fergus, standing up. "I call it aggressive enterprising." He turned, away, but cast one last look at Lucifer over his shoulder and said, "And call me Crowley." All three vanished.

**oOo**

It didn't take long for Lucifer to discover what Fergus -or _Crowley _- had done. He hadn't been teaching his students to redeem themselves. He'd been warping them, mutating, teaching them to manipulate their energy, how to possess living humans, and, worst of all, how to harness human souls.

Crowley and his minions dispersed across the planet and began buying their souls, sending Lucifer's own hellhounds to collect them. They amassed an army in no time flat, a bloodthirsty one.

Lucifer couldn't control them. He couldn't stop them from traveling the Earth, maiming and killing. He couldn't stop the tidal waves of broken souls sent down to him by the demons. He couldn't stop them from going back up and killing more.

Lucifer tried. He kept teaching, trying to protect the souls from Crowley. But for every one he saved, Crowley corrupted a thousand. It was pointless. Humans were pointless. His father had been wrong. They weren't worth saving. They were all evil and corrupt. They deserved punishment.

So when the time came for him to fight Michael, for the Earth to be razed and all humans exterminated, he felt no grief. He felt no remorse. At least not until Gabriel found him.

_"I have to save him," said Sam. His face was expressionless, as though he was only repeating a mantra already said so often its meaning had been forgotten.._

_"Right, you have to save your brother." The Trickster tapped the sharp end of the stake against his shoulder, pacing in short periods. "You know, Sam," he stopped, looked directly into Sam's eyes, "my brother was sent to Hell for eternity because of me. Because of my mistake, because I was young and stupid and gave him the slip to the wrong place at the wrong time."_

_Sam's brow furrowed, completely taken aback by this unexpected turn of the conversation._

_"I probably could have saved him," the Trickster continued. "There must have been something. I could have pleaded his case. Hell, I could have taken his place down there. I was more at fault than he was. And I would have, too." The Trickster's emerald green eyes seemed to have grown suddenly darker. This was the most serious Sam had ever seen him. "I would have done anything for him. **But I didn't**." He brandished the stake at Sam, punctuating each word. "I didn't because his being sent to Hell was the way the universe was supposed to work out." He raised his arms to gesture around the dingy room. "You think this is all spontaneous? You think you actually have *any control* over your future? Think again. Because I've seen yours, Sammy boy. And let me tell you: the sooner you learn to accept the inevitable, the easier your life will become."_

**Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.****  
****Dag Hammarskjold****  
**

He'd heard about Gabriel's disappearance soon after his banishment and feared the worst - there was a war going on, after all.

The first thing he saw when he saw his little brother, glaring at him with anger and defiance, was intense and unparalleled joy. He was magically transported back to their times as children, when they had run about the palace for hours on end, discovering secret passages and cupboards, playing make believe. Lucifer taught Gabriel everything. About fighting, about hiding, about his angelic powers, about girls. How to bend a mortal's perception to his will, and even an immortal's.

And yet he knew the time had come. The time foretold two millennia ago when he had made the worst mistake of his existence. He hid his grief behind a cocky mask of evil pleasure, taunting Gabriel, incensing him (less than successfully, to Lucifer's both chagrin and pride). The anger would make it easier…he hoped.

His heart nearly burst when Gabriel told him for whom he was fighting. For the humans. Lucifer couldn't believe it. The flawed, evil monsters who stopped in Hell only for a pit stop before zooming straight back up to Earth to cause more death and pain. How could Gabriel be fighting for _them_?

But then Gabriel spoke of how they tried, how people were better than angels, and Lucifer was reminded of how like him his little brother really was. That was exactly the way he'd accepted his penance, with the belief that people, even the ones sent to Punishment, were inherently good. That they could change.

Human nature didn't matter now, though. All that was left was the book, the page. The end. it was time. As it was written, so it would come to pass. Lucifer the Devil would kill his brother, The Archangel Gabriel, at the Elysian Fields. Because of one stupid mistake over 2,000 years ago.

"Brother, don't make me do this," Lucifer whispered, speaking not to the aged and cynical Gabriel before him, but to the child who had sneaked from the palace to play a harmless prank. He begged his brother's past self to stay home, to play any trick but that one.

"No one makes us do anything," Gabriel replied, snapping Lucifer back to the present.

_No,_ Lucifer agreed silently. _No __**one. **__But some__**thing**__. We cannot fight the Book, no matter how much we try. I am sorry, brother._

Gabriel's next words took Lucifer by surprise. "Father hid the Book after you left. Said we didn't need to learn anymore from it. He let Michael teach Cas and Balthazar…" Gabriel's left Lucifer's, fixed on a spot on the floor. "He taught them…about you. He told them you were evil, you were the Devil." He laughed humorlessly. "You were bad guy number one in all the bedtime stories.

"But, naturally," he continued, hitching a forced grin onto his face, eyes still on the floor, "I broke into Dad's office and read ahead. That was why I had to go. It wasn't just Michael's lies about you, although those were bad enough…I saw what I'd done. I couldn't bear to live with such pure, good angels when I knew I'd caused so much evil and death. I couldn't look Cas or Balthy in the face, and of course not Michael or Raphael."  
"Gabriel-"  
"_I _did it, Lucifer," Gabriel cut him off. "_I _did. But you were the one who was punished."

"Gabriel, I-"  
"I know what happens." Gabriel's voice cracked, and when his eyes met Lucifer's, they glistened with the unshed tears of millennia. "I saw this day."

"Then you know I have no choice," said Lucifer hoarsely.

"You always have a choice, brother," Gabriel replied with a shake of his head. "Look at Castiel. The script is in pieces. The Book isn't the highest power." He grinned, genuinely this time. "It's free will and cocktails now, baby."

He raised the angel sword above his head, and plunged it into his chest.

"NO!" Lucifer leapt forward, squinting against the blinding white light bursting from Gabriel's eyes and mouth. He collapsed, and Lucifer caught him and lowered him gently to the ground as all Gabriel's Grace exploded outward, leaving wing-shaped scorches on the wood floor of the dining room.

"Gabriel." A hard lump rose in Lucifer's throat as he held his brother to him, and he began to do something he hadn't done since the day he was cast out of Heaven. He began to weep. not only for Gabriel, but for the baby brothers who, by his absence, he'd forced to grow up far too quickly. He wept for the wars which had claimed too many of his family's lives. he wept for the future that he knew was coming for Balthazar and Castiel. He wept for Michael's fate.

"See you in Bali, bro."

Lucifer whipped around just in time to see…_Gabriel_, wings fully spread, vanish into the night, leaving the image of his familiar cocky smirk burned into Lucifer's mind.

And the Devil smiled.


End file.
